RTL 5minutes – Ville de Luxembourg: The train station, a drifting district?
It is a subject which interests the population and political leaders. La Gare is a district of the capital where people no longer live or work decently.
This is the conclusion drawn after hearing the testimonies of residents and traders in the district. People who took part in citizens’ meetings a few years ago and who today feel an even greater feeling of insecurity. At the station, there is drug trafficking and prostitution, and what corresponds less well to the image of a capital, empty streets without commerce.
Marc Schwamberger manages a hotel in avenue de la Gare and also speaks in this report on behalf of the owner of commercial spaces in a car park on rue Fort Neipperg. He has been back in Luxembourg for about two and a half years, having taken care of a hotel in Frankfurt, a city that knows what the drug business is all about. But what he sees in the Gare district in Luxembourg scares him:
“The most significant impact took place from May 2019, when the avenue de la Gare was closed to normal traffic. There we saw that it degenerated very quickly from the summer.”
Their building is located in the “Bermuda Triangle,” they say. Where Avenue de la Gare and Avenue de la Liberté begin. In this corner are those who are called in Luxembourgish “Gelungener” (weird people). During the day, they are already little disturbed by passers-by, because in reality there is no longer any chosen one to look for in the avenue de la Gare. More than 20 businesses are said to have closed their doors. Avenue de la Gare, a street for buses and dealers? It is not possible and that should be changed.
“The top of the rue de Strasbourg, the terraces. There, there is gastronomy, you can eat there. This means that in the evening, in my opinion, it has a positive effect. positive effect. It is also noticeable in the immediate surroundings, at least as long as the terraces are open. It is obviously more beautiful in summer than in winter. Unfortunately there is nothing left of that in the street here “, according to Marc Schwamberger.
Hoteliers and shopkeepers are not the only ones to be concerned about the situation in the Gare district. The residents live it on a daily basis, the community leaders also know very precisely what is going on. The citizens’ meetings with the successive ministers of internal security, Etienne Schneider, François Bausch and Henri Kox, showed the fear of residents. Without concrete result. A private security company hired by the town hall in the district, the service “At your side” created by the ASBL “Inter-Actions” and the police reinforcement would have brought calm at the end of last year.
Why don’t more businesses and residents come together, wondered Marc Schwamberger. Hence an initiative to remake the station into a neighborhood that lives, a true district of the station.
Whether they are traders, restaurateurs, hoteliers or residents, they would simply like to regain a normal quality of life.
The report from our RTL colleagues in Luxembourgish: